________________
362
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1894.
first place, the continuation of the Vedic Stadies of Messrs. Pischel and Geldner.36 In & very careful introduction the authors give & resumé of the history of the interpretation of the Veda, and, while attempting to do justice to everybody, have done their best to define exactly the points in which they disagree with their predecessors. The general spirit of their attempt has been criticized by me on the appearance of the first series of studies. 37 We recognize here, too, the same knowledge of the texts, the same philological attempt to go deeply into things and give back to India, a book which, after all, belongs to India; we recognize also the same daring. As in the first part, each will find something to take and something to leave, among all those fragments which defy analysis by their very richness and variety. I shall take objection to two points only, where the anthors seem to me to go astray on topics which they dwell on at length; sport and hetaerae in the Veda. The reader is com. pelled to cherish doubts as to the constant devotion to equine amusements attributed to the Vedic poets, and still more the ease with which Dr. Geldner detects and explains the language of the turf of those distant times, when we have difficulty enough to understand that of to-day. As to courtesans, it is certain that neither the Dawn nor the Apsaras are represented as chaste wires, but to assume from them the existence of a widely developed system of hetaerae is to judge of a society too much by its nymphs and goddesses.
General and detailed criticisms on these Studies have been written by Profs. Oldenberg 38 and Colinet, 29 and Prof. Ludwig bas devoted to them a long essay, very learned bat very muddled and confused.30 With Messrs. Pischel and Geldner we always know at least what they mean and where they wish to lead us. Another essay of the same anthor directed chiefly against the Prolegomena of Prof. Oldenberg deals chiefly with the reconstruction of the text of the Rigveda.31 Here again the inherent difficulties of the subject do not seem to satisfy Prof. Ludwig, who writes as if with a determination to make his readers do penance.
Want of clearness is not the shortcoming of the work in which M. Hirzel has fallen on the remarkable idea of counting and classifying the comparisons and metaphors of the Rigveda, in order to establish thereby statistics of the occupations and favourite pursuits of the Vedic peoples. To lend greater probability to the investigation he has compared the corresponding results furnished by the Greek poets. Those who know what sort of progress has been made in the interpretation of the Veda, - how questions like that of the knowledge of the sen by the Hindus of that period are still under discussion, - can only look on this laborious attempt as nothing but the whim of a man who has time to lose. We are also in the domain of fancy, but another kind of fancy, with M. Brunnhofer.32 M. Brunnhofer, who combines wide knowledge with a great deal of imagination, starts with a very true conception, namely that differences of race and language have never been, either in the past or now, an unsuperable barrier between nations. But he has let himself be led astray by it, and after several stages, is completely in a dream-world. In his eyes, the Veda was composed by people who came from Afghanistav, Persia, Media, Parthia, the shores of the Caspian, from Ararat, the Caucasus, the Black Sea, from everywhere, perhaps even from India. He discovers in the Veda stanzas in the Zend
> Richard Piacbel and Karl F. Geldner, Vedische Studien. Erster Band, Stuttgart, 1889, Zweiter Band 1 Heft, ibid. 1892. 71 Tome XIX. p. 128.
- In the Götling Gel. Aru. 1890, No. 10. 30 Les principes de l'exegde vedique d'aprda MM. Piachel et K. Geldner. In the Musion, Vol. IX. (1890) pp. 250 and 372.
* Alfred Ludwig, Veber Methode bei Interpretation des Rigveda in the Abhandlungen of the Academy of Prague, 1890.
#1 Ueber die Kritik des Rigvedatertos, ibid. 1889.
89 Hermann Brunnhofer, Irun und Turan., Historische, geographische und ethnologische Unterrichungen über den ältesten Schauplats der Indischen Geschichte, Leipzig, 1889. Vom Pontus bis rum Indus, Historisch-geogra. phische und ethnologische Skizzen, Leipzig, 1890,- Culturwandel und Völkerverkehr, Leipsig, 1890. This last book, a collection of various essays, is of a loss special character. The following I do not know at first hand, but doubt if it is much more valuable : Vom Aral bis xur Ganga. Historisch-geographische und ethnologiache Skissen ur Urgeschichte der Menschheit, Leipzig, 1892.
